Jack Ely

Jack Brown Ely (September 11, 1943 – April 28, 2015) was an American guitarist and singer, best known for singing the Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie".

Classically trained in piano, he began playing guitar after seeing Elvis Presley on television.

Jack Ely was born on September 11, 1943, in Portland, Oregon.

Both of his parents were music majors at the University of Oregon, and his father, Ken Ely, was a singer.

His father died when he was four years old and his mother subsequently remarried.

Ely began playing piano while still a young child, and was performing recitals all over the Portland area before his seventh birthday.

When he was eleven, a piano teacher provided what he termed "jazz improvisation lessons."

The teacher would show Ely a section of a classical composition, and the boy would have to make up 15 similar pieces.

He would be required to share each in class and then make up one on the spot.

On January 28, 1956, Ely watched Elvis Presley on television for the first time, and he decided that he wanted to play guitar.

At his first guitar lesson, he was required to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb", an experience that Ely found so demeaning that he quit after that lesson and began picking out his favorite guitar riffs by ear.

Ely played guitar and sang for the Young Oregonians, a travelling vaudeville show for entertainers under the age of 18.

"We didn't get paid in money, we got paid in experience," Ely recalled.

Ely was enrolled at Washington High School in Portland, Oregon.

He did not play in the school band, but had a passion for singing.

In 1959, he co-founded the Kingsmen and with them recorded "Louie Louie" in 1963; Ely's famously incoherent vocals were partly the result of his braces and the rudimentary recording method.

Before the record became a hit Ely was forced out of the group and began playing with his new band, the Courtmen.

In 1959, Lynn Easton's mother invited him to play at a Portland hotel gig, with Ely singing and playing guitar with the backup band and Easton on the drum kit.

The two teenagers had grown up together, as their parents were close friends.

Easton and Ely performed at yacht club parties, and soon added Mike Mitchell on guitar and Bob Nordby on bass to round out a band.

They called themselves the Kingsmen, taking the name from a recently disbanded group.

The Kingsmen began their collective career playing at fashion shows, Red Cross events, and supermarket promotions, generally avoiding rock songs on their setlist.

Ely played with the Kingsmen as he attended Portland State University.

In 1962, while playing a gig at the Pypo Club in Seaside, Oregon, the band noticed Rockin' Robin Roberts's version of "Louie Louie" being played on the jukebox for hours on end.

The entire club would get up and dance.

Ely convinced the Kingsmen to learn the song, which they played at dances to a great crowd response.

He unintentionally changed the beat of the entire song, basing it on Roberts's intro only.

Ken Chase, host of radio station KISN, formed his own club dubbed "The Chase" to capitalize on these dance crazes.

The Kingsmen became the club's house band and Ken Chase became the band's manager.

Ely was begging Chase to let the band record their own version of "Louie Louie", and on April 5, 1963, Chase booked the band an hour-long session at the local Northwestern Inc. studio for the following day.

The band had just played a 90-minute "Louie Louie" marathon.

Despite the band's annoyance at having so little time to prepare, the Kingsmen walked into the recording studio on April 6 at 10:00 am.

In order to sound like a live performance, the group's equipment was arranged such that Ely was forced to lean back and sing into a boom microphone suspended high above the floor.

"It was more yelling than singing," Ely said, "'cause I was trying to be heard over all the instruments."

In addition, he was wearing braces at the time of the performance, further compounding his infamously slurred words.

Ely sang the beginning of the third verse a few bars too early, but realized his mistake and waited for the rest of the band to catch up.

In what was thought to be a warm-up, the song was recorded in its first and only take.

The Kingsmen were not proud of the version, but their manager liked the rawness of their cover.

The B-side was "Haunted Castle", composed by Ely and Don Gallucci, the new keyboardist.

Ely died in Terrebonne, Oregon, on April 28, 2015, at age 71.